Open Source or Commercial E-Commerce Software

Website Magazine will be publishing an article on open-source versus commercial e-commerce software for its upcoming April issue and we need the help of our community of readers! Share your thoughts below on whether you've invested in a commercial solution or have chosen one of the open-source variety and why you did. Make sure to include your name and company so you get full credit for your thoughts in the April issue!

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to share our thoughts on open source versus commercial shopping carts. We've actually used both in the last year and are currently using open source.

Specifically, we are using VirtueMart with Joomla 1.5. I like having the ability to add as many products as we want without incurring additional costs. Additionally, it's nice to have control over our data. Finally, the affiliate program (although it is a paid component) is quite robust. On the downside, it can be quite challenging when a new version of either Joomla or Virtuemart is released. Last time this happened, we upgraded from Joomla 1.0 to Joomla 1.5. Eventually, we switched to a third party shopping cart as VirtueMart took some time to catch up with a stable version.

The third party software we used was quite good and user friendly; however, we found it difficult to properly set up conversion tracking for our various advertising. Although we were growing profitably with this cart, there was always a sense that some of our advertising was being wasted or ineffective.

Hope this helps with your article.

Bill Tyler

Your Success is Our Highest Priority!

Bubble Planner

Thanks for the opportunity to share some thoughts on this topic.

We are a start up, and as such need to save money.  So, it doesn't take much detective work to know that we went the open souce route for our shopping cart.  We chose ZenCart, because it fit perfectly with our needs.  We are a distributor of industrial products, and ZenCart allows us to set up a well layed out site that appeals to our target market.  Our market doesn't want too many bells and whistles; they just want to get in, find their product, and purchase it.

Another deciding factor for us was the online community that help support the product.  It's very active and there are a ton of ZenCart experts out there willing to help.  We also have no in house programmers, and having this support really helped ease our mind going this route.  The learning curve turned out to be pretty gentle, and we learned to navigate the system fairly quickly.

We may consider a commercial solution in the future, but right now we are happy where we are.

Greg Campbell

www.industrialpartfinder.com

I chose to use an open source shopping cart, ZenCart. I'd looked at other open source, like the WordPress shopping cart plugins since our site is on WordPress for the most part. The WordPress didn't have shipper integration that we needed like ZenCart, for customers to estimate shipping before checking out and giving actual quotes from FedEx.

I haven't looked seriously at any commercial shopping carts, although I'm sure there's some nice ones out there. The reason for choosing ZenCart in the beginning was price of course and functionality. So far it's proven to be a good platform for our needs.

I've found that Open Source ecommerce carts can be great for people who know coding and can do regular maintenance, such as when a security update is released that requires FTPing files and possibly some MySQL work. But for "regular people" who have online stores, I have yet to find a simple open source system that doesn't require programmer help. 

In between Open Source and totally proprietary is Miva Merchant. This ecommerce platform is not Open Source, but it allows third party modules to be developed and distributed. These third party modules add functionality like coupons, gift certificates, search engine optimization benefits, etc., at highly affordable prices, usually well below $100 each. With Miva Merchant in control of the code and API, users can know that multiple modules will work together well. This is another problem with Open Source, when modifications cause incompatibilities with add-ons or other modifications.

Additionally with Miva Merchant, your site is portable from one host to another. With leasing a Miva Merchant license, most users have no setup charges, and pay between $40 and $50 a month for the license and high quality hosting. If a user doesn't like a host, they can move, usually with no fees for moving the entire site.

On the farther end are total-control platforms that require hosting with the parent company. no third party add-ons, and no access to files. While these are excellent for complete amateurs who want ease of use with minimal flexibility, the user is also completely dependent on the one company for their entire business. If the software company goes out of business, every site that operates on their servers dies, too. That's too much of a risk for me.

I think it is great that you are giving your audience a chance to express their preferences on important issues. 

First of all, from my experiences over the last decade, commercial e-commerce packages have been overpriced, oversold and underperforming, and even if they are competent they lock you into a situation shere you have no control and are really a prisoner to their wishes.  Even though it is a desktop, Microsoft Vista tells it all. And lots of these commercial entities are no longer around. 

For our firm, control is crucial, and we get that with a variety of open source packages, where we have all the source code and the backing of one of the largest open source entities - Apache Foundation.  We have gone the SAAS route, and installed a Java based, Apache Foundation honed CRM for our use and those of our small biz customers. 

We are our own merchant, and we are also the "tech support" for small businesses who can't afford even a parttime programmer.  But things must be different in the San Francisco bay area, because we have no problem finding computer science grads or advanced students from Berkeley who will provide us with needed services for $15 per hour.  Given that we have control, we can choose when to upgrade, and because we are using a unitary system, rather than a mishmash of add-ins, we don't have upgrade problems.  We also chose a BSD licensed software package, because when we spend our money improving and extending the software, we don't have to share our improvements with our competition, like you have to do with a GPL based system like Joomla and Drupal and Hipergate, etc. 

We chose Java based, because that is becoming the el primo language of the business world, as opposed to PHP/mysql packages, which are slower, less scalable, and as one reader already mentioned, fraught with more headaches.  We also chose postgresql as our database, because current benchmarks demonstrate it is now superior to mysql in terms of simultaneous users, and it is independent, unlike mysql which was purchased by Sun, who are taking it in a less friendly direction and where all of the original developers are now leaving in droves.

Our systems also allow integration with VOIP, and other pieces such as collaboration as well.  Once you go to open source, and learn to take advantage of the dynamic open source communities that surrounds an application, you nevet go back to commercial.  And you definitely see it in your bottom line.

For me the biggest decision between the two is support.  There are lots of free open-source softwares out there.  The only problem is not all of them have good support systems.  Some of them are better than others.  If your e-commerce site goes down you shouldn't have to spend three days on a forum trying to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it.  I know that some commercial e-commerce softwares come with a little higher price tag, but as with anything else, usually you get what you pay for.  I'm not saying that you have to break the bank because I know there are lots of overpriced commercial e-commerce solutions out there.  I would just suggest that when choosing an e-commerce software you do your research.  Especially if you are planning to go the commercial route.  Call the company up and talk to them.  See how friendly they are and if you get a good vibe from them.  If you are considering the open-source route, make sure you feel comfortable with the on-line community that supports the cart before you implement it.  That way when you have questions or issues that you need to fix you can maybe find a quick solution.

The commercial software that I like is Shopsite shopping cart software.  The nice thing about this company is they let you try the software out before you buy it.  They offer on-line demos that you can play with and make sure that you get a good feel for the software before you buy it.  Plus, the support is excellent!  I just had a simple question and ended up on the phone with them for 45 minutes getting a personal tour of the software.  Every time that I have called them the customer service has been excellent. The software is very easy to use and customize.  Depending on the hosting partner that you choose there are lots of free ad-ons that are offered as well.

Whichever way you decide to go, commercial or open-source, my suggestion is that you do your homework and make sure you are comfortable with your choice.

Joel Kidd
www.joelkidd.com

Hi,

We chose Cubecart 3 as our e commerce solution, connected to the Mysql database, purchased the licence and added a few modules, some of which are paid for and some free. There is a modest amount of programming language knowledge required to add the modules but I have found this to be an interesting learning curve. There is also a good members forum to swap ideas and air the problems. When we looked at e commerce originally there was the usual myriad of products out there, some very expensive, some not worth bothering about plus there was very little in the way of well researched side by side comparisons. I would say that the most expensive may not always be the best and features paid for may never be used or even be needed to make your business successful on the web. Cubecart now has been updated to No.4 but 3 is still very acceptable.

Steven Long

www.footcaresales.com

I'm a web designer and have used ZenCart for my eCommerce clients not only because of price, but because it comes standard with so many features and with the additional modules available and the strong community of support it handles 99.9% of the eCommerce needs I've had. And, having first worked with paid shopping carts where you are locked into their upgrade schedule, ZenCart not only readily publishes updates, but it's open to any tweaking you might need to do.

It's easy to set up, easy to customize and very easy for clients to learn how to work with to maintain their own stores. 

Chris Kiltz

www.designbykiltz.com

I'd like to share my experience too. I just recently added ecommerce to my site, to sell some products next to the services I mainly perform. I did not need loads of features, but having already installed Joomla 1.5, the choice for virtuemart was easily made. Virtuemart nicely hooks into my existing site, has tons of features, can be downloaded for free, has many add-ons (some free, others paid) and there are many developers who can help you troubleshoot anything you run into. Virtuemart.net has it's own forum where you can try to figure things out yourself, but if you'd take a look at joomlancers.com, you'll see there are many people out there who can help you. Also local joomla fora will have developers around who can help you out, if you'd prefer a local solution (e.g. dutchjoomla.org).

The nice thing about virtuemart is that you can tweak the app to your liking. I have reworked the template to have it match my site and liking, I doubt whether that would be so easy with a paid solution. It is also possible to integrate shipping modules, add local paymentsystems, etc. I am a fan!

Greetings,

Jeroen

desda.eu

Although I have not recently used any real set eCommerce solution beyond paypal, I have looked at several.  I, though, develop my sites in asp.net 2.0, so I have to look into how all that ties together.  Furthermore, if I am going to pay for software, I certainly want the opportunity to really test it before I commit in a proposal.  It sure is difficult when you set a price and can't get the cart to work and you're stuck with having to choose a much more expensive cart. 

I have launched sites using OScommerce, ZenCart and Magento and AbleCommerce on an asp.net framework.

Open Source most definitely has its merits and its pitfalls.   For the most part, you either need a good IT dept or a trusted business partner that actually understands the applications and their communities and their contributions/plug-ins.  I've wasted a greaet deal of time and money installing a contribution only to have it not work prima facie, walk over something else and then have the developer afraid to back it out so I'm stuck with bloated code.

Open Source is slow for the most part if you have a large catalog because there is no load balancing and SEO which is always spoken of is not really understood, I think.  Yeah when  new site is launched you're primo with the engines unless you've really gone against even the most moderate practices but maintaining ranking is a whole other ball game.

The built in search appliance may be considerably less than you've bargained for as well.

For small catalogs, for start-ups I would most certainly recommend open source - zencart, magento. OScommerce is dated.  

For larger catalogs - those of us with thousands of products who need marketing as well as a solid web I would reconsider using open source in the next iteration.

I agree with Mr. Lasker's statement "I've found that Open Source ecommerce carts can be great for people who know coding and can do regular maintenance, such as when a security update is released that requires FTPing files and possibly some MySQL work. But for "regular people" who have online stores, I have yet to find a simple open source system that doesn't require programmer help." It is very rare that you find Open Source carts that are user friendly enough for the average John Doe, Jane Doe or Whatever widgets company can manipulate for their own use. Personally for sites that I have designed that require a cart I have used ZenCart or Miva Merchant - but then again I am a programmer not the average John Doe who looks at it in confusion and goes "Huh? Now What? Where's the any key!"

I too use Zen Cart for all of my e-commerce needs, doesn't have to be fancy or flashy for most of my clients. Just needs to work. And they have user contributed Plugins that work.

You can see my work at http://uswebworx.com

My stores I have built are at

http://bamachips.com

http://ttperformanceinc.com

http://africanamericansportswear.com/store/ (new)

http://redefineclothing.com (new)

All of the above are Zen-Cart and I consider myself a pro at manipulating these stores.

There are various open source program. osCommerce, Magento, Zeuscart are the most popular shopping cart.
Magento is groundbreaking open source technology and becoming the fastest growing eCommerce platform in the market with feature-rich, enterprise-grade eCommerce solution. OScommerce and zeuncart are also both great e-commerce software when it comes to shopping. X-Cart works well for sites too.
Finally I want to add that software for creating and mantaining electronic catalogs will be useful for people who own internet shops. For example, Product Catalog Builder  http://www.productcatalogbuilder.com/.